A Remarkable story of brain injury

Raphael Diluzio’s personal story is compelling on his own. He describes himself as a creative artist, entrepreneur and professor. His life took a wrong turn when, as he puts it, an 18-wheel truck carrying a full payload decided to “park” in the back of his Honda Fit. The accident resulted in a massive brain injury that caused amnesia and a loss of his ability to draw and speak. Undergoing two years of speech therapy to speak again gave him the time and motivation to reflect on creativity and the nature of creative process.

Diluzio came up with what he called the 7 stages of creativity based on his research and own experience as a recovering artist.

7 Stages Of Creativity

(1)State the question or the problem to solve. The idea is to carefully establish in your mind what requires your creativity. So, clearly frame the question/problem at the onset of the process. Note that it doesn’t have to be a grand problem like cold fusion. Things like what to give my spouse for her birthday, the next stage of a project at work, or what to write for your next blog post will do just fine.

(2)Research it. Humans are curious by creature; a baby will start exploring his world by sticking anything coming nearby in his mouth. This innate tendency to research a problem is even very satisfying to some of us. The gathering of data about a specific topic through reading books, exploring the Internet, and sharing your newly-found knowledge with others is the perfect way to saturate your mind with the elements related to the problem.

(3) But “Enough is enough!”. In other words, don’t get stuck in the research phase. This is what Diluzio calls the basta stage. Some might get lost in the satisfying nature of research phase, but at some point it’s time to stop inputting information and start reflecting.

(4)Gestation—You need to detach yourself from the problem and instead give it some space. It’s the stage of detachment. Let it stew. Keep the new information in the back of your mind while holding the problem gently in your mind. Look at the problem in a different way, with a different perspective: how would I solve the problem if I were a lobster or POTUS? Visualize the problem as something else. Apply divergent thinking. The use of metaphors or “psychological distance techniques“, as reported in this blog, can be particularly helpful. Don’t be afraid to think crazy ideas and more importantly don’t filter yourself. Diluzio suggests to operate with the fearlessness of imagination of an artist. Mesh the world of empiricism and intuition/imagination.

(5) Then if everything goes well, you should have a “eureka moment” that can comes as little flashes or major light-bulb illumination. What is very important at this stage is to write down ideas that comes with those eureka moments. So don’t waste those ideas: dictate them, draw them, capture them in Evernote (my personal favorite), write them down in your paper ideas journal, etc…

(6) Once you have the idea(s), you must “bring it into being“. A lot of people are afraid of failure and don’t give the idea a chance to become something concrete. We must operate without fear. DiLuzio says that he prefers “eloquent failures to boring success”. If you can concretize the idea yourself, get people around to help or describe it in minute details so others can realize it later. It’s important to bring the ideas out and share them otherwise the world or your company doesn’t move forward. Be the driver of innovation.

(7) Finally comes the stage of testing and criticizing by sharing those new ideas with the world. Invite criticism and feed it back into the creative process to refine the idea or branch out into better ideas.

Meditation Makes You More Creative!

(This is the second installment of my “UnconventionalInnovation Boot Camp” series)

ARE YOU BRAINDEAD, TRAINEE?! I’m going to make innovators out of you! Drop down, sit with your legs crossed and do some MEDITATION!

Ugh?! Read on…

A recent study, has shown that certain meditation techniques can promote creative thinking. The study, conducted by cognitive psychologist Lorenza Colzato at Leiden University, clearly demonstrates that meditation is not only for relaxation but can have long-lasting effect on human cognition including the much coveted creativity that every innovator should care about.

I could also drop names from the likes of Steve Jobs (who encouraged Apple’s employees to learn meditation to “boost their creativity“) or Oprah Winfrey (who practices Transcendental Meditation) or David Lynch (who started meditation in 1973, and says “It has given me effortless access to unlimited reserves of energy and creativity“), but I will let the study speak for itself.

Two main ingredients of creativity:

divergent and convergent thinking

As reported in this blog before, creativity is often seen as having 2 main ingredients: divergent and convergent styles of thinking. The study investigated the influences of 2 different types of meditative techniques: Open Monitoring meditation and Focused Attentionmeditation. The researchers matched and measured the 2 techniques as follows:

Creativity Ingredient

Meditative Technique

Divergent thinkingDivergent thinking allows many new ideas to be generated. It is measured using the so-called Alternate Uses Task method where participants are required to think up as many uses as possible for a particular object, such as a pen.

In Open Monitoring meditation the individual is receptive to all the thoughts and sensations experienced without focusing attention on any particular concept or object.This technique helped the participants perform better in divergent thinking, and generated more new ideas than previously

Convergent thinkingConvergent thinking, on the other hand, is a process whereby one possible solution for a particular problem is generated. This method is measured using the Remote Associates Task method, where three unrelated words are presented to the participants, words such as ‘time’, ‘hair’ and ‘stretch’. The participants are then asked to identify the common link: in this case, ‘long’.

In Focused Attention meditation the individual focuses on a particular thought or object.Unfortunately, this technique had no significant effect on convergent thinking leading to resolving a problem.

If you are not convinced by this single study, there are actually hundreds of studies all pointing in the same direction: there’s a strong link between meditation and creativity.

Tons of scientific studies on meditation

Of course, if you were to approach a Tibetan monk, and ask him whether he meditates for the sake of creativity, he will probably give you one of his typical smiles. People practicing meditation do it for a whole range of reasons since its benefits, both psychological (for stress, anxiety, cognitive function, depression, addiction, problem eating, focus, clarity, etc… ) and physiological (blood pressure, pain, stress markers, cellular health, sleep), have also been amply studied and are now being espoused by Western doctors, psychologists, etc…

Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years and the techniques themselves are fairly simple to master. That’s one of the wonderful things about meditation; it’s easy yet so profound since it can literally change our brain both structurally and functionally thanks to what is called neuroplasticity. Here’s a fascinating study from the NIH describing how one can alter one’s brain using meditation.

Google embraces Mindfulness Meditation

Such overwhelming scientific evidence hasn’t gone unnoticed by corporations interested in the overall well-being of its employees. Google for example has been promoting meditation for many years because of its many benefits but principally because of what is called: Emotional Intelligence (EI), vs. IQ, EI has been shown to be a great predictor of job performance.

Some people might be reluctant to start meditation because they find it too “sect-like” or think that it requires them to switch their religious belief system. Nothing could be further from the truth in most cases! The same way one can practice yoga without believing in any of the Hindu gods, meditation and its many benefits can be experienced without any spiritual shift.

Do you want to try? Follow this mini-primer

If you wish to get a sample of what meditation feels like, here’s a mini-primer (inspired by the SIY book mentioned above)

Find a place where you can sit comfortably (a train/subway/bus is actually OK)

Take three slow, deep breaths to inject both energy and relaxation

Now, breathe naturally and bring a very gentle attention to your breath by either focusing on your nostrils, abdomen or the entire body.

Be aware of the in breath and out breath and the space in between.

Think of this exercise as resting the mind on the breath. You can visualize the breath to be a pillow or a resting place, and let the mind rest on it.

Just be.

(This is important!) If at any time, you feel distracted by a sensation, thought or sound, just acknowledge it, experience it and very gently let it go. Then, bring your attention very gently back to the breathing. It will happen over and over again. Don’t look down on yourself as a result. Just keep on bring your attention back

Feel free to continue as long as you want or better set a gentle alarm to let you know that the 5 or 10 minutes are over.

Are you convinced yet?

If you are interested to find out more, I would suggest that you read Search Inside Yourself or Google “meditation” since there are many resources out there. For example, headspace (and its related mobile app) offers a free program to teach you some of the basics in 10 days, 10 minutes a day.

Interested in pursuing meditation? Or maybe you already are a avid practitioner? Either way, I would love to hear from you. Please do share your thoughts in the comments section below.